How India’s IT Laws Are Silencing Political Satire

The suspension of the Tamil news website Vikatan.com on February 15 over a political cartoon depicting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump has re-ignited the debate around freedom of expression, especially of political cartoonists. This instance is the latest in the trend of censoring political cartoons, which has seen a stark r✃ise in the recent years. At the start of 2025, two other political cartoonists, Satish Acharya and Manjul, received notices from the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), stating that the Mumbai police had raised objections to some of their cartoons, which allegedly “violated the laws of India”.

On January 3, Manjul shared a screenshot on his social media profiles of the correspondence he received from X. The email stated that X had received a request from Mumbai Police regarding his X profile, claiming that at least one of his cartoons were violative of Indian Laws. The cartoon in question depi꧃cted the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, hanging by his jacket from the pointed finger of Dr BR Ambedkar, the father of the Indian Constitution. Manjul shared the correspondence from X with a caption stating, “Mumbai Police on Duty”.

Acharya shared a similar post on his social media profiles on January 4, where X had sent him three such mails in November and December 2024, flagging three of his cartoons which had been objected to by Mumbai Law Enforcement, stating that they violate India’s Information Technology Act. While two of these cartoons were satirical takes on Maharashtra’s Deputy Chief Ministers Eknath Shinde and Ajit Pawar, the third one was on billionaire Gautam Adani. The third cartoon shows Adani being protected by the Union government and all its agencies as well as the media in ♑the now infamous bribery case. In his typical tongue-in-cheek style, Acharya shared the post with a caption that read, “So happy to know that Mumbai is so peaceful with perfect law & order situation that the police are now focusing on cartoons.”

It is crucial to note here that such steps are being taken by the central government primarily owing to the provisions of Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, which was brought in place through an amendment to the Act in 2008. The Section—which advocates of civil liberties have claimed can have a “chilling effect on freedom of expression” —allows the Central government or its authorized officers to block public access to any content, which they deem as a threat to “the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or𝄹 public order”. Critics of the law have pointed out how there is not adequate provision of a “due process” that can provide relief to those whose content is deemed such a “threat” by the government.

Both Manjul and Acharya are vocal critics of the BJP-led Central government and its policies and have been making pointed, witty and satirical cartoons for several years now. This form of censorship isn’t new for either of them. In 2018, Acharya quit Mail Today, a newspaper by the India Today group, on account of facing censorship of his cartoons. In 2021, News 18 allegedly terminated the contract of Manjul, after he had received another mail from🌼 Twitter regarding the Indian Law Enforcement’s request to take his account down. Even after such relentless attacks, both the satirists have repeatedly stated that they do not fear such repressive action, and will dedicatedly continue to do their work of questioning those in power through their cartoons.

However, the larger questions at hand remain—what safeguards does the🌜 Indian legal system provide to artists such as these two, against political censorship by those who fear their work? And who can be held responsible for the safety of artists, when law enforcement bodies themselves participate in taking such repressive action against them? Until the freedom to dissent is not considered crucial to the upholding of freedom of expression, these questions will continue to remain unanswered.